


do not go gentle

by ephemeralstar



Series: maybe sprout wings [6]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dante Dies, Darkest Timeline, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 16:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20246050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstar/pseuds/ephemeralstar
Summary: The other shoe drops. Dante dies.





	do not go gentle

The children hold no funeral for Dante, hold no love in their hearts for the Genasi they murder. They disperse once the deed is done, leaving Nel to hold down the fort, and Velora to weep.

Yin is the last into camp, careful when he walks with Wickett in his arms, the gnome having been dragged to death's door for her hubris, and he puts her near to the fire where Havok had lain the children the last time they'd all been here. Rook will tend to her, as Yin volunteers to check on Dante. Nel sits sentinel by the Genasi's tent; he's shaking, staring at his hands. The child's daggers sit in front of him, stained with dried blood, and his hands are caked with blood. Nel sees Yin, and his mouth flattens into a humourless line, expression quietly apologetic.

"Nel, dear boy, are you alright? Where are the other children?" Yin asks, voice tired. Nel mimes that they'd left, scattered in the wind, invisible once more. They weren't likely to come back. "Is Dante in there? Are they awake? Are they alright?" 

"_I'm sorry_." Infernal scratches it's way from Nel's lungs, and Yin is taken aback; the young boy preferred to mime or sign over ever speaking the language that he feels like he'd sold his soul for. Already Yin is losing the language the demon had given him just a few days ago, but he understood Nel well enough, and knew that tone. Nel's hands had clenched into fists, and he couldn't meet Yin's eyes, instead looking to his daggers. Yin, following his gaze, feels his own blood run cold.

"Nel, is Dante alright?" Yin says, voice dangerously calm; the child's jaw clenches but he can't answer. "Nel, _move_." Yin orders, Nel steps away from the entrance of the tent, but his daggers stay where they are. 

There's no signs of struggle, they could be mistaken for just being asleep if not for the blood stains on their clothes, their bedroll, the slit in their throat. There was no warmth, no fire, the tent was cold as ice and smelled like iron; thick and sticky, like it was clogging Yin's lungs. 

"Tell me it wasn't you," Yin's voice is soft, but he knows without even checking that Nel is still outside. The boy, however is silent. "_Tell me this wasn't you, Nel_." Yin snarled in Infernal, teeth barred, expression dark as he looks down at his slain friend. When he's met again with no response, he makes he way from the tent, crackling with murderous intent. Clouds were quickly gathering above them, the Half-Orc's scar glowing faintly as power and intensity bubbled just beneath his skin; for the first time since knowing Yin, the elven child looked afraid. For the first time since knowing Nel, Yin gave him a reason to be fearful.

"_I did what I had to!" _Nel snapped, putting up a front of strength in the face of Yin's posturing, "_the others would have tortured them!_" 

"You did what you had to," Yin says quietly, and after a beat, it's as if he deflates, and he turned away. "The others woke up before Dante, didn't they?" Nel nods solemnly, and Yin takes a deep breath, schooling his expression into something neutral, just as Rook calls for him. The other Cleric wonders aloud where the children are, and Yin, defeated, tells him they're gone. Rook clucks about with concern, worried that he never got to apologise for hurting the few of them that he did, but he doesn't understand everything that's happened, not yet. 

"How's Dante?" Rook asks finally, voice gentle, his hand on Yin's arm, a small comfort. Yin gives a thin, tired smile.

"Sleeping." He lies.

Rook asks if he's hungry, making mention that Havok is cooking up a feed for those still conscious; it's a weak attempt at humour, but Yin waves him off, asks him to make sure Wickett was alright. All he says is that he was going to stay by Dante's tent incase they woke up, needed to be grounded. Rook casts his gaze at the ominously rumbling clouds overhead that hadn't been there moments ago and doesn't seem convinced, but he's full of too much inner turmoil of his own to try and pry into Yin's well guarded psyche. 

For hours, Yin sits with his head bowed, his heart in his throat, praying, pretending like his hands didn't shake where he was clutching his holy symbol like a lifeline. It's late when he feels a gentle tap on his shoulder, and turns to see Nel, expression surprisingly, and painfully open, gingerly holding the holy symbol that Yin had gifted him. He doesn't take it off, but he gestures to it. Yin swallows hard, dropping his gaze. 

"It's a holy symbol, connected me to my God," he explains, voice low and calm. The others are mostly asleep, though Rook is awake on the other side of the fire, poking at the fire that's now close to embers, still sitting near Wickett, with Havok asleep on his shoulder. Nel sits cross-legged, mirroring Yin, and he reaches out gently where the Half-Orc's fractal scar glowed with divine light, ever so faintly. After a moment, he pointed at the new holy symbol Yin wore, and then the one around his own neck, frowning. "Do you want me to teach you? I'm just trying to call-" Yin's words caught in his throat, and his hands go back holding his holy symbol tightly, "to call upon the strength to bring Dante back." 

Nel's eyes widened, expression turning hopeful, and he points insistently to Rook.

"I don't want him to go through that again," Yin admits quietly, "this isn't Hell we're bringing Dante back from, no-one wants to be in Hell, but after-" he's getting so choked up, and if it were any other moment, Yin would be mad at himself, but once, just this fucking once, he's allowing himself to _feel_. "After all they've been through, they may not want to come back from Heaven... I don't want Rook to blame himself if they don't come back." Nel's expression falls, but they nod with a newfound understanding. Yin reaches for his hands, so small, capable bringing about so much tragedy. "They adored you, Nel," it's not what the boy is expecting, and his expression falls at Yin's words. He nods, it's meaning clear.

_I know_.

"They wanted to help you."

_I know_.

"You did what you had to," Yin's voice is quiet, and Nel looks a little teary, a little confused, "they would have respected that." Another, slower nod from the boy.

Slowly, so slowly it's like watching a supernova, Nel's expression crumbles; he hasn't been able to catch a break since he first met the party, and he's so _young_, still so fragile for all his experiences. His sobbed apologies hurt so much more than just for the grating Infernal they're spoken in. Yin holds him close and still prays, begging, _pleading _for someone up above to hear him, having faith that he could be somehow pointed in the direction of Dante's soul, to coax the Genasi back down to the Prime Material Plane. It's all he has left; faith, faith and the knowledge that they'd done it before and after everything that had happened, he couldn't fucking lose them again. It was selfish, it was fucking selfish to ask them to give up their happy ending, but he'd done worse for far less.

When Rook finally sleeps, Yin feels guilt settle into his bones as he asks Nel to take Rook's remaining diamond, the one he had incase the first resurrection when bad. The boy is quick to help in any way he can, however, apparently not feeling the same moral reservations, and is back within a few minutes. Yin knows he's already forgotten the phrasing to bring about the spell _Harm_, but the ritual for _Raise Dead_ is at the forefront of his mind, clear as day, a welcome trade.

_"Will it work?_" Nel asks, watches as Yin starts carving out sigils in the dirt, artfully arranged just like they were in the vision in his head. Around them, the wind picks up a little, the first drops of rain signalling a storm hit the ground, the tents, sizzle on the fire's embers.

"I don't know."

_"Why? What do you mean? It hurts you, doesn't it, whether or not it works?" _

"It's all I have left!" Yin cries, his hands dirty, with actual tears in his eyes, "I have to have fucking faith that it works, alright? I have to believe that they'll come back, it's all I've done all my life, and it has to fucking work now! I've cared about three people in my life, and I'm not - _I'm not _\- letting this one go without a fight, not again. Because if Dante leaves, it feels like only a matter of time before Rook will too. And then I'll have outlived my family. Again. Nel," Yin's voice goes quiet, and the rain gets heavier, "I wasn't meant to outlive them." Yin is crying, angry, defiant tears streaming down his cheeks and hidden thankfully by the rain. 

Nel is at a loss, doesn't know what to say, can't form thoughts in the face of Yin's desperation. He opens his mouth, but only two words come out.

"_I'm sorry_." 

"I know." Yin goes back to his work. Nel, in silence, heads back to the camp fire; Rook and Havok are stirring, uncomfortable in the rain, and Rook asks the boy as he approaches them, what Yin's doing. Yin, a good distance from camp, is sitting motionless at the edge of his half-finished ritual space. Nel gives a slight, unconvincing smile and taps the holy symbol around his neck, as if to say that Yin is praying. Rook nods quietly, and he and Havok move Wickett to a tent, before taking up residence in their own respective tents. Nel stokes the fire, watching Yin slowly move to start working on a new section.

It doesn't take him long to have the ritual area ready, he's trembling when it's finished, and knows there's only one thing left to do. He carried Dante's lifeless body to the centre, so gentle, so careful not to jostle them, placing them gentle as a sleeping babe in the middle, holding the diamond taken from Rook like it was a bouquet. Thunder rumbles overhead as Yin begins praying, begins chanting, begins begging all that is holy to return his friend from their resting place.

He prays until dawn, though he knows it should only take an hour. It's still raining when his friends awake, when they find him on his hands and knees, whispering and chanting as his stubborn tears continue to fall. 

"No," Rook's voice cracks when he realises, "no, fuck _no._" He's not one to swear, but he's kneeling by Yin's side, praying louder and harder, using every once of his divine connection in an attempt to aid the sobbing Half-Orc. "Havok, _Havok __come on_, you're always going on about being an arcane caster, _come help_ \- get Theren, Wickett, Allura, get fucking Frank, _anyone_." 

Prayers tumble in an unbroken string from Yin's lips, but he's shaking now, as if struggling to support himself. The minute he hears Rook chanting beside him, feel's the elf's hand on his shoulder, he breaks, lets himself fall, lets Rook catch him and hold him close as he finally fucking lets go. It's been too long already, Dante's at peace; they're not coming back. 

"Stop it," Yin snaps at Rook, though his face is pressed to Rook's thigh, with the other Cleric rubbing circles into his back, "the diamond's gone, I've been here for hours, stop fucking chanting." It sounds like he's begging, teetering between angry and desperate, and Rook's voice dies in his throat. The others take in the scene with both horror and despair, and Yin's sobbing is the only one above the rain and thunder. "They're not coming back." He chokes out. "They're never coming back."

"How did this happen?" Rook's voice is soft, he holds Yin tighter. Yin can't even bring himself to answer. Nel is silent. Thunder crashes overhead.

Yin doesn't move from the site of the failed ritual for days. Rook finds Velora in the forest at the edge of the tent city, distraught, and brings her back to feed her and give her support. Dante's body is moved, is buried, and the rain washes away the sigils. Nel's daggers stay like a placeholder, like a reminder, untouched on the ground outside of Dante's tent; he can't bare to pick them up. When Rook finds out what happened, he hugs Nel tightly; he did what he had to, that's something that Rook's coming to understand, both about himself, and about those around him.

"I gave them the messenger stone," Havok's voice is quiet when he delivers Yin food, "in case you wanted to talk to them; I can get another in town." 

Yin's hand goes to his satchel, finding the messenger stone, rubbing his thumb along it's familiar, smooth surface. He thanks Havok quietly, eats, and for the first time in almost a week, he rises.

"You deserved a Viking funeral." He stands at the end of the dock, looking out over the ocean, the rain has finally stopped, though the clouds are still gathered. He speaks into the message stone, holding it to his chin as he gazes out at the endless expanse, heart aching as he keeps his eyes on the point where the sea meets the sky. "You made me a liar, Dante, 'cos I promised to make you my first mate and show you the world." And alone, at the end of the dock, he can feel himself beginning to cry again, voice thick in his throat, breathing just a little shaky. "How dare you make a liar of me."


End file.
